


What came after

by galateaGalvanized



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Sith Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galateaGalvanized/pseuds/galateaGalvanized
Summary: “Are you all the Council sent, then?” Bo-Katan asks, swinging one leg over the speeder’s seat. Her voice is raspy, and Cody wonders if it’s from smoke inhalation. “Considering they wouldn’t help with the first Sith, I guess I should be glad for any help at all with the second.”It's the first time he's heard someone use that word to describe Kenobi, and he bristles.“We’re not here on behalf of the Council, Miss Kryze. We're here for our general.”Or:Everyone has a breaking point. That includes Obi-Wan.That includes Cody.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 55
Kudos: 545





	What came after

Cody has just finished reviewing the field reports from the Bantooine offensive when the call comes in. The call itself is encrypted six ways to Centaxday, and it takes his commnet a few seconds to even open the communication relay. When it finally connects, Skywalker appears in faint lines of blue light, looking haggard and anxious even in the low resolution of the projection.

“Cody, thank the Force,” he says, and Cody snaps to attention. He’s been out of the field for a few hours, and he regrets having already stripped down to his blacks.

“General Skywalker, what can I—”

“We don’t have much time.” Skywalker sounds serious in a way that Cody’s only ever seen in the direst circumstances. “They grounded the _Resolute_ , and the ship I'm stealing isn't fast enough. Commander, I won't get there in time, so you’ve got to get to him before they do. Mace and Kit are bringing their whole battalions, and they aren’t planning on negotiating.”

“Get to who, sir?” Cody asks, but his gut clenches with the pain of already knowing. There aren’t many people left that can make Skywalker sound like this.

Skywalker runs a tense hand through his hair and looks anxiously over his shoulder. “Obi-Wan. They’re saying he went dark, but he wouldn’t. He’s just… I don’t know. He’s in pain. Cody, look, if there's anyone else who could talk him down, it’s you— _please_ , get there first. Please. I can’t lose Obi-Wan.”

The receiver catches some faint background noise, and Skywalker cuts the transmission as he turns away.

For a few long seconds, Cody just stares at his wrist comm. The whole thing reminds him horribly of what the Council pulled with Rako Hardeen, but he’d only received a letter, that time, not a call. Not even a letter, really: just an impersonal paragraph describing Kenobi’s death and a list of instructions for the 212th’s next mission. Taking those bloodless words to the rest of the 212th and the 7th Sky Corps—having his voice shake until his brothers had crowded around him and pressed his shoulders, his armor, any part of him they could reach—listening to the first fragile voice start humming _Vode An_ through his earpiece—

Cody breathes in sharply through his nose then out in a long exhale. No, this won’t be Rako Hardeen all over again. Kenobi’s still alive, this time, and Cody’s damn well going to keep him that way. He pulls his armor on and calls for Boil as he runs towards the command deck. There had been a set of coordinates included in the apology note Kenobi had laid on Cody’s desk before he left, and Cody knows even before Crys puts them into the navcomp where they’ll be headed.

“Hyperspace engines engaged, sir. ETA to Mandalore is four hours. Jump will commence on your mark.”

Cody gives himself a second to deliberate, safely hidden behind his visor. He prides himself on his professionalism, his structure and his organization, but here, at least, he’s a bit like Skywalker: there’s not a lot he wouldn’t risk for Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“Sir?”

“Computer, disconnect all long-range, interfleet, and intrafleet comms. Authorization CC-2224, code Omicron-Omega-Phi,” he says, and everyone on the bridge holds their breath until the ship computer beeps a cheery confirmation. Three years into the war and three months after Rako Hardeen, Cody’s faith in the Jedi Council’s decision-making capacity is minimal, and he can’t disobey any orders he doesn’t receive. 

Besides, either he brings Kenobi back to defend Cody's choice, or the court martial doesn’t really matter. “Crys, punch it.”

Crys looks up, eyes wide, and punches it.

-—-

They see the smoke before they see the city, billowing in great plumes out of the tallest building in Sundari. The rest of the city looks structurally sound from the sky, but the lack of port control or landing guidance is telling. Cody keeps the _Resolute_ in upper atmo and takes a LAAT/i down with Ghost Company. The streets and skies are barren, windows are boarded, and the very air seems to hang heavy and stagnant with waiting.

Cody steps off the ship and stares up at the capitol building, dread and desperation mixing like oil and water in his gut. The Kaminoans hadn’t built them to handle emotions half as well as they had built them to handle blasters.

After another few minutes, someone in blue Mandalorian armor approaches on a speeder, flanked by three similarly armored guards. The thrum of their engines cuts off within a few meters of Cody’s squad, and Cody stands at sharp attention when the leader removes their helmet.

Her red hair reminds him, achingly, of Kenobi. The rest of her face sings a different familiar tune, though. Cody’s been finding the same bones in his brother’s faces since he was decanted; he knows where he’s seen this particular genetic pattern before.

“Kryze,” he guesses, taking off his own helmet, and Kryze looks more weary than surprised when she nods. “We’re here to help.”

“Are you all the Council sent, then?” she asks, swinging one leg over the speeder’s seat. Her voice is raspy, and Cody wonders if it’s from smoke inhalation. “Considering they wouldn’t help with the first Sith, I guess I should be glad for any help at all with the second.”

It's the first time he's heard someone use that word to describe Kenobi, and he bristles before he can catch himself. With effort, he centers himself.

“We’re not here on behalf of the Council, Miss Kryze. We're here for our general.”

The fresh spark of pity in her eyes twists in Cody’s ribs like a knife. 

“I see,” she says, voice even. “You’ll be wanting the whole story, then.”

And there on the pier, she gives it to them: 

Maul had been running Mandalore from the shadows through a puppet figurehead, and the other Kryze sister had languished in a Mandalorian prison cell while Maul sulked on her throne. He hadn't been doing it for money or power, Kryze explains. He'd held the city and the sister solely as bait for Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"Kriff," Scrapper mutters, just loud enough for his vocoder to catch it. "I knew the general had enemies, but…"

Boil elbows him, and Kryze continues her explanation.

When Kenobi had arrived, he'd gotten close. So close. But 'close' hadn't been close enough. Kryze's voice is bitter, now. She's more of a Mandalorian than the duchess, from what Cody can tell: she's holding onto anger over sorrow. Hovering hopelessly on the wrong side of the throne room windows, Kryze had watched her sister die in Kenobi's arms all the same.

"Up to this point, I'd had no idea what they were saying. My jetpack's loud, and the windows up there are thick," she says. "So the first thing I heard was every single one of those windows shattering, and the second was the screaming.

"I stayed as close and for as long as I could. I watched Obi-Wan tear through Maul's commandos like they were pieces of flimsy, and when he turned to look at me… his eyes were burning like the sun."

"And Maul?"

"I don't know; I didn't see what happened to him. But by the time I left, Obi-Wan was wielding two sabers: one black, and one red. Oh, that reminds me. Maybe you know what to do with this."

She reaches into one of the compartments on her speeder, and she pulls out a lightsaber that Cody would know deaf and blind. When Cody's fingers curl around the saber, all of Mandalore falls away. For a single, dark second, he feels the full weight of the terror that's been clawing up his throat since he first took Skywalker's call.

He shoves the fear away and clips the lightsaber into his belt just as he has a million times before.

"Thank you," he says.

The quiet of Mandalore's capital is a sharp contrast to the whirlwind chaos of his thoughts. No seabirds call from the wharf; no ships trundle to and from their ports. The sound of the Mandalorian guards' speeder engines cutting on is the only mechanical noise on the whole pier. It doesn't match the idea that the battle footprint had been contained to one tower.

"The city's infrastructure is all run through servers in the capitol building, isn't it," he says in realization, and Kryze nods.

"No one's been in or out since yesterday. We can remotely control most of the power and water distribution, but anything more complex is airgapped. We think Maul rigged the systems to shut down as a failsafe: one more hostage for his total."

Just the complication they needed, honestly. Cody wants to run a hand over his face. He wants the world to stop, to give him five minutes to process. He wants, at the very least, to just sit down.

"Ok," he says instead, and he sends a short-range data packet to her comm with a list of frequencies. "I'm going to take this squad to the tower for an initial recce. I just sent you the short-range frequencies for the _Negotiator_ ; tell them where you need men, and they'll go. We've put cities in much worse shape back together, so don't worry."

"It's not the city I'm worried about. But thanks." She puts her helmet on and steps back, and then she pauses for a single torn second. Cody knows the look well.

"If you—if you can bring her body back," Kryze says at last, and it sounds as painful as pulling teeth. "If you can do that, I'd appreciate it."

Cody thinks about all the bodies of lost brothers he's never seen again, the piles of armor to be refurbished, and the constantly changing roster for the _Negotiator's_ barracks. He thinks about how she hasn't even asked his name, and he says, "We'll do our best."

-—-

Trench manages to slice into enough of Sundari's wireless network to get them blueprints and 3D models of the capitol building, and Cody spends a few minutes sketching out a basic entry plan for the structure. If anyone notices that he's using the SOPs for a search and rescue instead of enemy recon, no one calls him on it.

"If you find him, stay low. Call me immediately. If he spots you, get him talking; you all know how the general loves to talk," Cody says.

His brothers give him a series of grim smiles before suiting up.

The front doors click open with no resistance, and Cody takes point into the darkened space beyond. The 3D model of the building he'd loaded into his helmet UI leads him directly to the foot of emergency stairs. They're lit with thin strips of LEDs that cast a faint blue glow on the duracrete walls and durasteel steps, eerie and flickering. Still, there's enough light that Cody's helmet automatically switches his infrared back off, and he begins the 30-story climb to the throne room.

There isn't much to do besides climb and think and overthink. Kenobi's lightsaber swings gently on his hip with every step he takes, counting time like the pendulum on an antique clock. Cody had requisitioned a clip from the Jedi quartermaster after the third time Kenobi had dropped it, and he can still clearly remember Kenobi's shocked and slightly embarrassed delight the first time he saw it.

He remembers, unwittingly, unwillingly, the times after that. Late nights on the _Negotiator_ , re-hashing strategy after strategy. Sharing tea, sharing space, sharing grief. He remembers Kenobi's hands on his face, overly careful and gentle—and those hands withdrawing with a slow and well-trod regret. Kenobi had always seemed like he was looking out a window at love.

 _Fierfek_. His general had never been able to love halfway, even at a distance, and he's had more than his share of misery because of it. Even if Satine and Obi-Wan had long-since resigned themselves to leading separate lives, Cody can understand how being the reason for Satine's death was what had finally broken the man.

He doesn't know what it means that Skywalker called him, though. He's trying not to think about it.

By the 30th floor, he's out of breath. The environmental controls in his armor are working overtime to keep him cool, and he strains to listen past the sound of the fans. His HUD isn't showing any signs of life on this floor, but that means next to nothing with Jedi involved. Or with Sith.

He's glad he's alone for this one. There's no one watching while he hesitates, staring blankly at the arching, ornate double doors in front of him. He doesn't know what he's expecting on the other side, but he can imagine the worst: Kenobi sitting on the throne, covered in dust and blood and char; the body of the duchess sprawled limp and lovely across his lap; the Darksaber igniting with a vicious hum.

But the room and its throne are empty.

"Kriffing hells," he says softly. The cream tile flooring is scored with lightsaber burns, and Kryze had been telling the truth about the busted windows. Pieces of stained glass in reds and blues crunch beneath his boots as he picks his way through the room. He stands in the center on the burnt crimson carpet that had once led the way to a royal audience, and he stares. There’s a distinct lack of blood and bodies. 

He curses again. Against all his better judgment, he’d already started thinking of Kenobi as a Sith—but he’s not here for Ventress or Dooku or Maul. He’s here for his _general_. Where would Kenobi go, after everything Kryze described?

A click of his back teeth brings the building map up again. After a second’s thought, he blinks twice to set a new destination and watches as his HUD plots a course through a twisting maze of hallways to another wing of the building. He takes off at a jog and opens a commline to Ghost Company.

“Change of plans,” he says, trying to control his breathing. “The capitol building’s got a medcenter in the residential wing.”

“You think he’s hurt?”

“Something like that,” Cody says grimly, then mutes the line.

When he reaches the medcenter, the doors slide open at a single touch. He breathes in and out as calmly as he can, trying to control his racing pulse, and steps through.

Kenobi is standing in front of the bacta tanks along the far wall. He’s in a black tac suit with dangling clasps that outline the absent shape of Mandalorian armor, and his hair still has flecks of plaster amidst the auburn strands.

The light of the single active tank casts a faint halo around him, limning him in a pale, angelic blue. Within the tank, Satine’s body is suspended in a medical harness, although she’s not hooked to a respirator. She looks peaceful; her eyes are closed, and her golden hair floats in gentle curls around her face. Cody could be fooled into thinking her asleep if not for the fact that he can see the other side of the tank through the blackened, burnt hole where her heart used to be.

Kenobi presses his fingers to the glass.

“Legend has it that the Dark Side can create life where no life should be. That it can keep a heart beating long past its time, or restart a heart that's long-since stopped.”

He turns, and his eyes are the burning, brilliant red of blaster fire. Cody’s hand twitches towards his Deece out of sheer animal instinct.

“I hope you don't find this too macabre, Commander," Kenobi adds, his tone light. “I thought bacta might make it easier for me later, if I ever find the way.”

“General,” Cody chokes, and no amount of mental preparation could have prepared him for this. He’s terrified that his general is as lost to him as Satine is to the world. “General, she’s dead.”

Kenobi looks back at Satine, his red eyes softening, before he steps away from the tank.

“Perhaps,” he says. “Have you come here for her, then? Or did the Council at last send you for Mandalore?”

Cody’s glad his helmet hides the way he winces. From what Skywalker said, Kenobi is right to expect an assault.

“No, sir,” he says. “I came here for you.”

Kenobi blinks at him.

“You came here for _me_?”

Cody’s not expecting the awful, grating laughter that breaks free of Kenobi. It’s tinged with the edge of hysteria, as jagged as broken transparisteel, and is just as hard. 

A Force blast shoves Cody back through the entrance and into the hallway. His collision with the wall knocks the breath out of him, and prior experience tells him hitting the floor will be almost as bad.

But he doesn’t drop; something has pinned him like a butterfly to the wall. He looks up to see Kenobi step out of the medcenter while the door shuts behind him with slow finality.

The neck seal on Cody's helmet hisses as it decompresses, and Cody can only watch as his bucket floats up and off his head. Across his upper body, the clasps on his armor are being pulled free with a series of soft _sniks_ until Cody’s heaving chest is covered only by the thin material of his blacks. Kenobi steps in close after the armor drops, close enough for Cody to see specks of gold in his burning red eyes. The Darksaber hovers at his shoulder, but it’s wavering. Kenobi is a monster who does not want to be a monster; he is not a monster at all.

Kenobi smiles as if he hears the thought, and the Darksaber scores a few thin lines in his skin through the fabric of Cody’s blacks. It burns, but it's just the threat of worse, and it's easy to ignore. The hand Kenobi places at his throat, however, takes up all of his attention. Cody’s skin feels tight all over, hot and tense with adrenaline and something he can’t put a name to.

“Why would the Council send you after me?” Kenobi asks.

Cody closes his eyes against the pain of revelation. He leans as far as he can towards Kenobi, ignoring the Darksaber, and he doesn't stop until his forehead connects with Kenobi’s in a soft Keldabe kiss. Cody opens his eyes when he feels Kenobi freeze.

“General—Obi-Wan,” Cody says, helplessly. “Sir, you misunderstand. I came here _for_ you.”

“Oh,” Kenobi says, and he slides his hand from Cody’s neck to cradle the back of his skull, keeping their foreheads connected. Relief, slow and sure, runs through Cody’s brain. This is Kenobi, still, but with some veneer stripped away. With some wildness made more real. 

The thought sends desire burning low in Cody’s gut, amplified by how he's held close and held down by the ineffable Force and the power of his general’s gaze. His breath catches, and he thinks he sees Kenobi catch some of that through the Force, because Kenobi’s shocked expression shifts into wonderment.

“ _Oh_ ,” Kenobi repeats, smiling, and he kisses Cody with that same smile on his lips. He doesn’t kiss with the fierce abandon that Cody had been expecting, had possibly hoped for, but rather as if Cody were something precious. Cody closes his eyes against the red light of Kenobi’s eyes, and he can almost lose himself in the sensation, almost pretend they’re on the _Negotiator_ , maybe celebrating some impossible victory, the clones and their Jedi—

But this never would have happened if Kenobi were still a Jedi.

Cody pulls his head back, panting. He wants this, more than anything, but they need to _talk_.

Kenobi doesn’t give him the chance. The second kiss is harder, deeper, and heat licks down Cody’s spine as he absently wonders if Kenobi’s going to take exactly what he wants and damn the timing: take Cody up against this wall, in an open hallway with the city burning around them, and Cody trembles with how much he wants that.

With a sigh, Kenobi pulls back, and Cody fights not to chase him with his mouth.

“Oh, my dear,” Kenobi says, and he sounds more like himself. “No, I’m not going to lose you, too. Don’t worry, Cody. I’m going to take care of everything.” 

A calloused finger runs over Cody’s lips and across his cheekbone. It presses lightly to his right temple, and Cody’s world goes dark.

-—-

He wakes up in a huge, ornate four-poster bed, and he’s been stripped out of the rest of his upper body armor and the shirt that the Darksaber had cut through. There are bacta patches in a neat line over where he'd been burned or had wounds from Bantooine, and his skin is whole and unharmed beneath them. Through the window, the sun is already starting to dip towards the horizon; his brothers must be out of their minds with worry.

Kenobi’s lightsaber is still on his hip.

On the edge of the bed next to him, Kenobi is chatting with a holoprojection that Cody would swear blind is Count Dooku. When he closes the call and glances back towards Cody, his smile is small and content.

“My deepest apologies for the impromptu nap, Commander,” Kenobi says cheerfully. “You looked like you needed it, though. And I had a few things I needed to clarify with my former grandmaster.”

So it had been Dooku. Cody stiffens at the mention of the Sith, but Kenobi just keeps smiling. The red embers in his eyes are burning low.

“Are you joining the Seps, sir?”

“No,” Kenobi responds immediately, and Cody nearly chokes on a burst of relief. He wouldn’t ever fight his brothers, not even for this man. “No, I’m not taking any sides. Or rather, I’m taking my own side. And your side, and your brothers’.”

Guilt bites into his sternum, and he sits up. “I need to comm them, sir, I—”

“I know, I know. But first, explain something for me, please. Why did you take the risk of coming here? You couldn’t have known what you’d find.”

Kenobi looks at him so patiently, so soft and considerate, and the piece of hair that always falls into his face has broken free again. Cody wants, desperately, to tuck it back in place. Kenobi had kissed him. Kenobi had almost loved him, once, before drawing himself away. Cody still isn't sure he has the right.

“No,” Cody admits, looking down at the bedsheets, and he forces his hands to lie flat instead of twisting in the fabric. He doesn’t know how to explain his feelings any better than he knows how to handle them, so he settles for the raw and unpolished truth: “But sir, you have to know that I’d have followed you anywhere. I’d follow you into the depths of Hell itself, and Mandalore just happened to be a little easier to get to.”

Kenobi laughs, sincere and fond and free.

“Oh, my dear. What I did to Death Watch is nothing compared to what I would do to keep you safe,” Kenobi says, his musical voice light and sweet. Beneath his words, Cody can almost see the wreckage of the careful walls that Kenobi had once built around his emotions. The Duchess’ death had shattered more than just the capitol building’s windows. Maybe Cody does have the right, now.

Kenobi pulls away before Cody can reach up. “Alright, well. With that settled, I’ll let our boys in.”

Within minutes, there’s shouting in the halls, and Cody realizes abruptly that Kenobi had been keeping the whole room out of Ghost Company’s perception. 

As a Jedi, Kenobi had always had an affinity for mind tricks like forceful suggestion and passing unseen. Cody had often wondered exactly how much of their negotiating success had been Kenobi’s natural charm, but Cody had never asked, and Kenobi had never brought it up. It hadn’t seemed like an affinity the Jedi would have approved of.

That doesn’t seem to matter so much any more.

Half of Ghost Company bursts into the room with their hands twitching towards their Deeces—only to stop, stunned, when they see Cody shirtless in bed and Kenobi smiling up at them. They turn their heads away out of startled courtesy, looking like they’re not sure what to do with their blasters for the first time since they were three-years-old.

A violently red blush blooms across Cody’s chest and moves steadily towards his face, but when he opens his mouth to explain himself, he has no idea what to say. He looks helplessly at his brothers, each of whom are lingering near the doorway like first-time house guests instead of the best soldiers the 212th has to offer. 

“Orders, sir?” Boil asks at last, staring determinedly at Kenobi instead of Cody. He then visibly realizes that there are two potential commanding officers in the room and that he’s not looking at the right one. He blinks over at Cody, immediately remembers why he hadn’t wanted to do so in the first place, and then turns back to Kenobi with a secondhand blush. “Uh, Commander, sir?”

“Oh, sit down, men. I assure you that your commander’s honor is intact,” Kenobi says, and his eyes crinkle at the edges in exactly the same way they used to. “You came to talk, didn’t you? Well, then. Let’s talk.”

There aren’t enough couches for all of them to sit, so Kenobi settles on the floor with his back against one of the bed posts. Cody pulls on the torn shirt that he finds at the foot of the bed and sits beside his general, watching him out of the corner of his eye. Kenobi’s hands rest on his knees, palms up, but it is hardly the reassurance of peace that it used to be. He wears his power like a cloak settled firmly across his shoulders, exactly where he had once worn his sorrow.

Cody wonders if Kenobi and Skywalker would still be well-matched, now.

“General… er, uh, Kenobi, sir,” Boil says, clearly still tripping over an ill-defined command structure.

“I think we can do away with titles now, Boil. Please call me Obi-Wan. And that goes for all of you,” Kenobi—Obi-Wan—adds with a pointed glance towards Cody.

“Right, sir,” Boil says, neatly sidestepping the issue. “So you’re not a Jedi any more? Not a general?”

Obi-Wan smiles in the patient way Cody has always associated with how he teaches the padawans. 

“Yes,” he says, gentle. “I’ve used the Dark Side of the Force, and I am continuing to do so. It would take years of training to ever again walk the path of the Jedi and the Light.”

“Right. But you’re not, uh. You’re not like the others.”

“As I think you’d say, not ‘banthashit’?” Obi-Wan laughs again, the same low chuckle that Cody had heard night after night while trading field stories over paperwork. “No. The different sides of the Force are simply different tools to achieve different goals.”

“And what is your goal, sir?” Cody asks.

Obi-Wan leans forward on his elbows, and the twinkle in his eyes is the same, too. “There’s a conspiracy at the heart of the Republic, gentlemen. I’d like to unravel it before it puts anyone else I love at risk.”

A soft murmur goes around the room, followed by the faint rustle of armor shifting. Cody thinks he can feel the reaction in two parts: first to the conspiracy, and second to the idea of maybe being someone who Obi-Wan loved.

“Dooku reached out to me, when he’d heard of my… situation,” Obi-Wan continues. “He wanted to repeat a suggestion he’d already made to me once: help him overthrow a spider who had spread its web across the galaxy, a web centered on Coruscant. I told him yesterday that I’d consider it if he could give me proof.”

“And did you get your proof, sir?”

Obi-Wan glances at Cody, and his fondness is undercut with the possessiveness that this new Obi-Wan seems to carry in spades. He reaches over with a careful hand to tap Cody’s right temple, on the opposite side from his scar—exactly where his finger had been when he’d sent Cody to sleep by the medcenter.

“Yes. Yes, I did,” he says, and Cody’s veins run with ice water.

Cody had read Rex’s report on the chips, of course. They’d gone drinking over it, over the Kaminoans and their sterile cruelty, over Tup. Over Fives. Rex had sobbed in his arms like the child he had never been and yet still was. It was a weakness, but there had been the shared fantasy—fallacy—that anyone who’d made it to the third year would make it to the end.

And yet. 

And yet Fox hadn’t even set his blaster to stun.

“And you trust him on this?” Cody bites off. He has to know. He wishes he had his armor on, and it’s no small relief when Obi-Wan puts a hand on his knee and pushes a bit of calm to him through the Force.

“Not in the least. Which is why I’m asking for your help, men,” Obi-Wan admits, turning to look at every one of Ghost Company through their visors. He's negotiating an alliance, Cody thinks. “If there’s a threat to you in either the Senate or your own heads, I want to find it. Will you help me?” 

It reminds Cody, strikingly, of the negotiations that had just barely succeeded with the indigenous populations on Carcer. Their mission had seemed absolutely impossible before they even touched down, and it had seemed more impossible still in retrospect. Cody had asked, a little tipsy on _tihaar_ and relief, how Obi-Wan had managed to get what the Republic had wanted without bloodshed.

He never forgot what Obi-Wan had said: “The key to negotiating, my dear commander, is knowing with great certainty what the other party wants most.” 

The only things Cody has ever wanted is for his brothers to be safe and to be able to follow Obi-Wan to the ends of the universe and back, so this isn't much of a choice for Cody. It hasn’t been one for a long time. 

But still he keeps quiet, because he knows the same might not be true of his brothers. A curl of warmth pulses in the back of his brain at the thought, and when he looks up, he sees a pleased understanding in the laughter lines by Obi-Wan’s eyes.

Boil and Crys stand at the same time, then Scrapper, then Trench, and then, slowly the rest of Ghost Company. It occurs to Cody that he hadn't been able to hear their helmet comms.

“We’re with you, sir,” Scrapper says. “At least until we get to the bottom of this.”

“Then let’s get started,” Obi-Wan says, and Cody can almost feel the satisfaction rolling off him in waves.

There’s a war console in the adjoining room—an extremely Mandalorian furniture choice for a bedroom, honestly—and when Obi-Wan pulls up a map of the Mandalore system, the blue light of the holoprojector casts strange shadows on all their faces. If not for Cody’s lack of armor and the plush bedroom décor, it would feel exactly like a mission brief.

“Sir, Skywalker was the one who let us know you were in trouble,” Cody says suddenly. It seemed important to say. “He said the Council were sending Generals Windu and Fisto, and that they aren’t planning to negotiate.”

The projected planets spin in front of them and then shrink until they can see the broad reach of the surrounding systems as well. After a few quick adjustments to the console, three blinking red shapes appear that Cody would recognize anywhere, and they’re rapidly approaching Concord Dawn. 

“How kind of Anakin,” Obi-Wan replies, smiling. “And how perfectly uncivilized of the Council. I’ll have to lodge a formal complaint.”

The projection spins again, and it hums a little louder until glowing numbers appear next to each of the star destroyers: time-to-arrival estimates, ticking steadily downwards. From what Cody can tell, they have sixteen hours to impact. 

He’s glad he got a nap earlier, however brief and unintended.

“Orders, sir?” Boil asks, and he’s asking Obi-Wan this time. 

“Let them come,” Obi-Wan says. “It’s time to speak with the younger Miss Kryze, I think.”

-—-

When Kryze steps through the front doors of the capitol building and sees Obi-Wan, the first thing she does is try to punch him. He catches her wrist before she can land the hit, and Cody sees her body strain against his one-handed hold.

The brothers move their hands away from their blasters.

“I don’t think we quite have time for that, Bo-Katan,” Obi-Wan says, releasing his grip.

Kryze snatches her hand back, glaring. “And what do we have time for, then? You think I’m going to let you just slide into Maul’s place?”

Around them, the lightsaber burns and broken masonry seem like a compelling reason to do just that, but Obi-Wan simply stares at her for a long moment. He reaches slowly towards his belt and pulls out the Darksaber, igniting it in a perpendicular line between them. Kryze leans towards it, eyes wide, and Cody thinks he can see what Obi-Wan already knew: how very badly she wants it.

“You know I can’t beat you in a fair fight,” she says after a beat, stiff and ungraceful in her concession.

Obi-Wan cuts the saber off and spins it across his palm until the emitter is facing him instead of her. “That’s true. So tell me, then: what would you give me for an _unfair_ fight?”

“You’d—are you saying you’d throw the fight?” 

“I’m saying everything has a price, my dear. You should at least consider paying mine.”

For the first time since Cody met her, Kryze doesn’t look murderous. She looks wary, but Obi-Wan’s definitely caught her attention. The line of her throat moves when she swallows.

“Alright,” she says. “Alright, I’ll hear you out.”

She agrees to their terms rather quickly. Cody doesn’t even think Obi-Wan had had to resort to any use of the Force; he had offered Kryze everything she wanted—short of bringing her sister back—in exchange for deceiving people she already hated. 

Simple math, Cody thinks. 

Just as Satine turns to leave, Obi-Wan’s voice calls her back.

“I am sorry, for what little it’s worth,” Obi-Wan says, and Cody can hear the genuine sorrow in his voice. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t save her.”

Kryze stares at him as if looking for the pieces of the man she used to know, trying to find the seams where the new and the old fit together. Cody doesn't think she'll find them; Obi-Wan has been wholly reforged.

“You avenged her, at least. Excessively,” Kryze adds.

“Yes, well. I thought I’d avenged Qui-Gon, too, and I don’t like to make the same mistake twice.” His shrug speaks volumes. “Maul’s in more than two pieces, this time.”

A shiver goes around the room. Obi-Wan’s learning how to be a monster pretty quickly, Cody thinks. Or perhaps he’s simply remembering all the things he had forced himself to forget.

Kryze just looks at him. “You aren’t the man my sister fell in love with. Not any more."

"No," Obi-Wan says agreeably. "I'm what came after."

-—-

Mandalore’s violent past is recent enough that the capitol building still has a barracks, and it's still stocked with neat rows of beds and the indestructible kind of food packs that you mix with hot water. The sheets are dusty but neatly pressed, the mattresses thin but sturdy, and the walls are as thick and well-fortified as any battalion could hope for. The Jedi star destroyers are still nine hours away, and all of the details for Obi-Wan’s plans are already in place. The brothers of Ghost Company plan to make the most of their remaining time. 

...Namely, by eating something that isn’t a ration bar and sleeping for seven straight hours on something that isn’t a floor.

Cody stirs the boiled water into his rehydrated food a little more thoroughly. He’s not sure if the chunks of meat are supposed to be chicken or beef or shatual, but it’s hot, weapons-grade spicy, and there’s plenty of it. Obi-Wan is a line of warmth at his side on the bunk, and his brothers are spread throughout the room in various stages of inhaling their food. They’re going to be fine, Cody thinks. Obi-Wan’s going to take care of everything.

He realizes, with a small shock, that he’s happy.

Beside him, Obi-Wan tucks his food pouch away. “Cody, would you step into the hall with me for a second? I’d like to discuss something.”

No one questions them as they stand to leave, picking their way over sprawled legs and piles of armor. After a few minutes of walking, Cody turns to ask what Obi-Wan needs, and he finds himself pinned once more to the wall, pressed there by an invisible hand. He's only in his blacks this time, and he feels the cold durasteel as a sharp contrast to the sudden burn beneath his skin. His breath catches, hardly daring to hope, hardly daring to know what to hope for. 

Obi-Wan steps in close and cups the line of Cody’s jaw, studying him carefully.

“Obi-Wan,” Cody says for no other reason than to say it, and Obi-Wan smiles.

“My dear, you and I have unfinished business,” he says, nosing along Cody’s cheek. Cody can feel the wet puff of each word against his skin. “And you know I hate to leave things half-done.”

With a soft sigh, Obi-Wan pulls back, and Cody can’t even lean forward to follow him. Those red-burning eyes are half-lidded as hObi-Wan adds, “But you have to tell me, first: is this something you want?”

Obi-Wan’s giving him another choice here, as if Cody hasn’t longed for this to be something he could choose almost since the start of the war. He doesn’t even have to think.

“Yes,” Cody says, and Obi-Wan’s smile curls into something smug and proprietary. “Yes, Obi-Wan, _please_.”

This kiss is what Cody had been expecting the first time: something fast and loose and opened-mouthed, more a press of lips and tongues and teeth than a kiss at all. Obi-Wan kisses like he’s laying a claim, hands running up and under Cody’s shirt while Cody can barely twitch his fingers up from where they’re pressed to the duracrete.

“Let me touch you,” Cody gasps, and Obi-Wan takes Cody’s lower lip between his teeth and scrapes along it as he pulls away.

“Not yet, dearheart,” Obi-Wan says, kissing his way down Cody’s throat and lingering at the curve where Cody’s neck meets his shoulder, just above the hem of his blacks. There’s pressure and teeth, and Cody knows there’ll be a mark tomorrow. His chest heaves.

With a single graceful movement, Obi-Wan drops to his knees. He puts his hands on the clasp of Cody’s pants and looks up, the burning embers of his eyes shining through long blonde lashes.

“Yes?” he asks, and Cody has to close his eyes against the surge of desire whiting out his thoughts.

“You’re—yes, yes to everything,” Cody says, and the slide of his zipper echoes down the hall.

He springs free the second Obi-Wan tugs the waistband of his briefs away, and Obi-Wan doesn’t hesitate to lick away the bead of pre-come already beaded at the tip.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Cody says. He has a single second to compose himself before Obi-Wan grips the base of his cock to hold it steady and licks a line from the circle of his fingers to the spot just under the head. He does it again, and again, until Cody whines high in his throat.

With a smirk, Obi-Wan takes pity on him and seals his mouth over the head of Cody’s cock, running his tongue over the vein on the underside as he does, and Cody’s whole body shivers at the sensation. It’s nothing, though, compared to how he feels when Obi-Wan shifts to finally take the rest of Cody into his mouth, bobbing up and down along the length.

“Fuck, _fuck,_ Obi-Wan, _please_ ,” Cody gasps. He feels his hips try to jerk forward against the unyielding pressure keeping them in place, and he burns harder when he can't move a centimeter. Stars are sparking across his vision. His spine feels like a bolt that’s been twisted too-tight, and he tries in vain to reach for Obi-Wan again. “Please, let me, let me touch you.”

He feels Obi-Wan’s hum like an electric current running from his dick to his heart, but, at last, his right arm can move. He spares a second to marvel at Obi-Wan's control before pressing a finger to the stretch of Obi-Wan’s mouth around him, then curling his fingers around the back of Obi-Wan’s head. When the tightness in his gut gets overwhelming, he twists his fingers into Obi-Wan’s hair, trying to pull him back.

“Wait, wait, I’m close.”

Obi-Wan pulls back with a pop, a line of saliva still connecting the two of them, and Cody’s heart stutters in his chest.

“You said you’d come for me,” Obi-Wan reminds him, smirking. His voice is a little hoarse. “So _come_.”

He swallows Cody down almost to the hilt, to where Cody’s hitting the back of his throat, and then he swallows, and Cody’s coming with a muffled shout.

When Cody can open his eyes, he thinks the Force is literally the only thing holding him up. Obi-Wan is still on his knees on the floor, mouth red and bruised and smug. Cody scrabbles at Obi-Wan’s shoulders until Obi-Wan rises and Cody can kiss him, can taste himself in Obi-Wan’s mouth. He reaches for the clasp on the pants of Obi-Wan’s borrowed tac suit, and then Obi-Wan is hard and straining in his hand.

He keeps his grip firm and sure as he pulls once, twice, and the third time, Obi-Wan comes apart in his hold with a shudder.

The Force holding him against the wall flickers in and out of existence until it releases him completely, and Cody catches Obi-Wan when he tips forward, panting. That little rebellious piece of Obi-Wan’s hair has flipped out of place again, and Cody tucks it behind Obi-Wan’s ear with shaking fingers.

“If we were half-done before, is this done?” Cody asks when he gets his breath back. Perhaps he should have waited until after the afterglow, but it’s all he can think about with Obi-Wan held close in his arms. He feels Obi-Wan’s laugh shake all down his chest.

“Oh, no, dearheart, I’m not finished with you,” Obi-Wan says, looking up. The fire in his eyes could keep Cody warm for years. Forever. “For so long as you’re with me, I will never be finished with you.”

He remembers, then, that Obi-Wan never could love halfway. It’s intoxicating, to be under all that bright attention, and a little terrifying—

But Cody doesn’t do anything by halves, either. His loyalty has always been to his brothers, to Obi-Wan, and to the Republic as a distant third. Recent events have just pushed the Republic further down the chain.

Cody kisses him, quick and with a hint of teeth. 

“I’d follow you anywhere, sir, always,” he says, and he lets himself be pulled back to the bedroom suite.

-—-

Cody wakes up to the sound of blasterfire hitting a ray shield. 

It is not, actually, an uncommon occurrence.

From the bed, he can see the Jedi star destroyers as dark gray specs in a light gray sky peppered with flashes of blue and red as the shields hold against the barrage.

Obi-Wan has already strapped on a set of red, pockmarked armor that Cody recognizes from the Death Watch bodies that Ghost Company had moved yesterday.

“I let you sleep in as long as I could, my dear,” Obi-Wan says. “But I didn’t want you to miss the show.”

There’s a purple-red mark peeking out over the very top of Obi-Wan’s gorget, and Cody desperately wants to drag Obi-Wan back down and give him a matching set. 

But he's a professional, and there's work to do.

His GAR armor is in a neat pile in the corner of the room, and he goes through it until he finds what he’s looking for and turns back to his general.

“Don’t use Maul’s,” Cody says, and Obi-Wan looks at him with quiet understanding when Cody presses the lightsaber into his hands one more time. “You’re still you, Obi-Wan. And this is still yours.”

Obi-Wan's hands curl around his saber, and his red eyes are soft and pleased. "Thank you, Cody."

They part ways after that: Obi-Wan to the docks, and Cody to go strap on some unfamiliar armor of his own. The tunnels they’re using aren’t on any of the models they’d downloaded, but Kryze pointed out where the entrances were. It’d been her childhood home once, long ago, but she still remembered the way. These passages had been how she’d snuck her dissidents into the capitol to try and fail to rescue her sister.

The rest of Ghost Company meets him at one of the hidden entrances, and his brothers are all dressed in the black and red armor of their old enemy. The smell of incinerator smoke follows them down.

He only hears later about the battle.

It was something spectacular, says everyone who saw it. An aspiring Mand'alor and a Sith facing off on the pier for control of the planet? It seems more like a holovid than reality. One in full beskar'gam and a beskar knife, and one in stolen armor wielding two sabers: one black, one blue. No one really knows how Bo-Katan Kryze had gotten the drop on Obi-Wan, especially without any help from the Jedi masters racing from the city center towards the fight, but the most popular version says that Kryze used a mix of the knife and her fibercord whip to get to the Darksaber. After that, every story ends the same way, with Kryze using the Darksaber to stab the Sith straight through his blackened heart. 

The storyteller’s voice always gets low at this point, giddy with excitement. 

“He used his dying breath to try and choke her,” they all say. “And, without even a second of panic, she brought up her boot, and she kicked him off the pier!”

There are stories, too, about how the Jedi troopers searched every inch of the capitol building. How they found scores on scores of orange-painted trooper armor rife with the bubbled plastoid of lightsaber burns. How the incinerator smelled of burnt hair and skin for days after. Rumors abound: Kenobi went easy on Bo-Katan because he still loved the Duchess; he woke up from his madness, and he couldn’t live with the guilt of killing his men; he was too prideful to risk losing to Generals Windu and Mundi.

But none of the rumors have a single scrap of the truth.

None of them, for instance, mention anything about Obi-Wan swimming past the pier to the outgoing wastewater pipe for the city, conveniently empty from Maul’s earlier sabotage. They don’t mention him finding Ghost Company dressed in Death Watch’s armor in the same tunnels where the armors’ former owners had taken root. They don’t mention the medical droids, stolen away from the capitol building’s medcenter, awaiting instructions for surgery.

...And they _definitely_ don’t mention Cody grabbing his general and kissing him, hard and deep and dripping with seawater, while the rest of the 212th erupt in a silent cheer behind them. 

"Welcome back, General," Cody says, stepping back with an embarrassed cough to fall into parade rest. "Where to next?"

Obi-Wan grins, sharp and hungry. "Coruscant, of course. Are you with me?"

Cody had sworn to follow this man into the deepest pits of Hell, and here, now, they're standing at the gates together. 

"Always, sir. Always."

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on my discord asked for "Horny Sith Obi-Wan", and who would I be to deny them? (Hugs & kisses, Sara!)
> 
> As always, all feedback loved.
> 
> P.S. I picked tumblr back up to get to know the fandom better; I'm there under the same handle, [galateaGalvanized](https://galateagalvanized.tumblr.com/). I'm trying to post WIPs and art there, and I'm about to start taking prompts. Come say hi!


End file.
